


Whumptober 2020 11 Struggling

by frankie_mcstein



Series: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Category: Magnum P.I. (TV 2018)
Genre: Blackmail, Gen, Hypothermia, Kidnapping, Poor Higgy, Protective boys, Whumptober 2020, Worried Tommy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26948782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankie_mcstein/pseuds/frankie_mcstein
Summary: Whumptober 2020 prompt 11- StrugglingWhile they were struggling to find her, she was struggling just to stay warm.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947172
Comments: 19
Kudos: 32





	Whumptober 2020 11 Struggling

**Author's Note:**

> I stretch the prompt a little here I think. This year's just don't seem as good as last years and it's causing me some real issues in terms of inspiration.

It was so dark. Why was it so dark? She was sure she had only just woken up, so shouldn’t it be light? The sun should be up, the rays leaking in through the curtains. And why was she so uncomfortable? She hadn’t skimped on the mattresses for any of the beds across the main building or the guest house; she should feel a little like she was floating on a cloud. Why was her side aching and her hip burning? And why was her arm throbbing and making her stomach churn? And why was it so dark?

…

_“So you see, Mr. High and Mighty Private Dick, you don’t have any option. Either get your friend to let you into the evidence locker and plant that bomb, or your partner is dead.”_

Magnum shook his head as the phone went dead. It had been going on for over a day. First, he’d been told to delete some photos for an infidelity case. He’d done it while consoling himself with the fact that Higgins always made backups as soon as she had either a network connection or access to basically any form of technology. 

Then he’d been ordered to take a gym bag to a locker down at the beach. He’d opened it a little and seen stacks of money. That had been harder to stomach, knowing he was probably helping some sort of drug-buy. He’d just hoped it wasn’t guns. That thought had prompted him to send an SOS to Rick who, in turn, had called Katsumoto. 

Filling them in hadn’t been easy; how was he meant to say, ‘Higgins has been kidnapped and her survival depends on me doing whatever illegal things the distorted voice on the end of the phone tells me to do,’ without actually saying any of those words in case whoever had taken Higgins had somehow hacked his cell? He tried to tell himself he was just being paranoid, but the weight of Higgins’ life was hanging on his shoulders. 

It took some strained messages and a lot of very old cyphers, but he finally got a thumbs up from Rick and heaved a sigh of relief, relaxing just a little at the thought that his friends and HPD all knew a woman had been kidnapped and that he was being manipulated. He knew he could trust Katsumoto to make sure everything was kept quiet.

But this? How on earth was he meant to plant a bomb in the evidence locker? He wasn’t even entirely sure where the evidence locker was, let alone how to gain access. And then he smiled to himself. He had been told to involve Katsumoto. He could go and see him, they could talk, it would be expected. He quickly sent a text saying only ‘coffee?’ and had a reply saying ‘sure’ less than ten seconds later.

The pair of them kept up the ruse for a few minutes, chatting about nothing and complaining about cases that didn’t actually exist while they checked as carefully as they could for any sort of surveillance. Magnum had picked out the man in the blue van at the very start of the day and pointed him out. Katsumoto responded by raising an eyebrow in the direction of a shady looking character lurking in a doorway a few shops down from the cafe. No one close enough to overhear them. They’d both left their cells in their cars, just in case. 

“Okay, Magnum, what’s going on? Rick seems to think your three-page-long text about the dawn this morning means Higgins is in trouble?”

“She is!” Magnum said quickly, worried Katsumoto was about to tell him nothing had been done to try to find her. 

“And I’ve got two teams out trying to trace her steps through yesterday,” came the calming response, “but what actually happened?” He listened carefully as Magnum explained that they had been working on separate cases, that he hadn’t realized she hadn’t come home the night before, how he had been woken up that morning by a series of photos being sent to his phone.

“First one was just her walking toward her car. She was unconscious in the next one, and then tied up. Then there was a shot of her on what looks like the deck of a boat and then being carried into… well, it looked like an old diving bell.”

Katumoto didn’t question Magnum’s deductions; if anyone was going to be able to recognize a boat deck or a diving bell from the background of a picture taken by a crappy cell phone camera, he was pretty sure it would be a SEAL.

“So you think that, whoever these people are, they’re holding Higgins underwater somewhere?”

“I have to think that. I can’t just assume it was an idle threat. And those bells? They’re expensive to maintain and difficult to use. Nuzo got one when he first started his salvage business and always said it had been a bad investment. She might not have much time left.”

“So what do they want you to do?”

…

She wasn’t sure if she was cold or warm. She thought she had been shivering once, but it felt like a long time ago. Maybe she had dreamt the shivering. Or maybe the shivering was real and this was the dream? What did she know about dreams? What dreams did she have?

Her mind tried to recall something other than her dream of marrying Richard, but it just felt so hard to think somehow. Surely she was usually quite good at thinking. But then, if she thought that, she wouldn’t know if it were true or not. 

“...”

Had she made a noise? She’d thought, for some reason, that she wouldn’t normally be alone while feeling so wrong and had tried to call out. But had she? And who would be there? Actually, where was here? Had she already asked herself that? She couldn’t remember. Oh, it was so dark. Why was she even awake when it was so obviously night time? 

…

Before she had moved back to the mainland with Jake, Lara had hired a business manager to take care of the day-to-day of running her late husband’s salvage business. Jake had always been fascinated by it all, and she harbored the hope that it would be a ready-made business venture for him. If she were being totally honest with herself, she was hoping that her baby boy could follow in his dad’s footsteps without having to join the armed forces.

She had been thrilled to hear from T.C. until he had explained his reason for calling.

_“Of course,”_ she’d told him, sounding a little angry he had thought that he needed to ask. _“I’ll call the manager right now and tell him to expect you.”_

The plan, what there was of it, was pretty simple; the real concern was the fact that Higgins, if she was in a submerged diving bell, would almost definitely be dependant on an umbilical cord running from the boat for oxygen and that her breathable air would run out horrifically quickly if the men holding her saw anyone approaching and cut the air supply off. Katsumoto was going to stall with Magnum while smoke bombs were planted in the evidence locker. T.C. was going to take Rick up in the chopper and help the Coast Guard scout out any likely looking boats in the area. Then, using the equipment from Nuzo’s offices, a pair of former Marines now working as salvage engineers were going to check for the diving bell and infiltrate it once it was located.

“Yes, sir, I understand that it’s a risky plan. But all of the key players have extensive military experience,” Katsumoto had said, arguing with his captain. He knew the man came from a military family and had the utmost respect for the armed forces. “The Coast Guard are happy to provide backup as long as everyone involved is willing to accept the risk.” He absolutely didn’t mention that the Coast Guard were only willing to join in because Rick had called in several favors or the fact that even Rick hadn’t been able to convince the Coast Guard to send men to do the actual rescue.

The trouble was keeping kidnappers from getting suspicious if they saw the Coast Guard, as well as keeping the salvage crew, hopefully soon to be the rescue crew, far enough away that they wouldn’t be spotted without losing them altogether. At least the color scheme of the chopper and the popularity of T.C.’s business meant that no one would care if they saw the bird flying around for a bit. Even Rick hanging half out the door and peering through binoculars shouldn’t arouse too much suspicion.

Now if they could just figure out what on earth they were meant to be looking for to help identify a boat that was currently maintaining a connection with a diving bell.

“I don’t think I’ve even seen a diving bell in real life,” T.C. was saying, the slight crackle on the headset doing nothing to hide his frustration.

“Tommy said the deck should be trailing thick cables into the water,” Rick called back. “They’re what we’re looking for. Coast Guard says no one is operating any sort of legitimate business with that kind of equipment right now, so the first one we find should take us to Jules.”

It was an encouraging thought; the boat couldn’t move while the diving bell was under the surface, so they would either spot the cables or the bell itself. Either way, they both suddenly felt like they were closer to getting their little sister back than they had felt since Magnum’s text had come through.

…

She knew she needed to stay awake, but she couldn’t remember why. A voice in her head was telling her over and over to keep tucked up, to keep her eyes open, but it was getting fainter. She felt like she should be feeling scared but couldn’t figure out why. Something was wrong. And as hard as she tried she couldn’t work out what it was. Didn’t her father always tell her that sleeping on a problem would… would… 

The voice dropped away to nothing more than a faint murmur.

Her eyes, long since at half-mast, slid all the way closed.

Condensation, formed by her body heat leaching into the horrendously chilled air, dripped slowly from the top of the diving bell. But even the drop that landed on her face didn’t get the slightest reaction.

…

The boat was a rust bucket that hardly seemed capable of staying afloat, let alone throwing out enough power to pump oxygen down to a submerged diving bell. The thought that these guys might have been stringing Magnum along, that Higgins might have died even before the first photo was sent, settled into Rick’s mind. He told himself he was letting his imagination run away with him. If all they were going to do was let her die, they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of actually loading her into the diving bell or dropping the thing into the water. Or hooking up any of the cables.

_‘She’s being kept alive; now stop being so melodramatic,’_ he snapped at himself, knowing his unusual pessimism was being caused by the tension. Since they had spotted the boat, the Coast Guard had ordered them to fly away. The patrol boat had been heading toward the rusty old trawler as the chopper had banked. Thankfully the rescue team had excellent comms and were keeping as close as they dared to the action.

_“Two of them have gone on board,”_ came the voice over the line. _“I think they’re probably asking for permits and the like.”_ And then, as T.C. focused on keeping the helicopter level and still and Rick wished for far more powerful binoculars, _“We’re on!”_

They didn’t call Katsumoto, not wanting to have to call back and explain it was a false alarm if nothing came of it. Waiting was something they were both good at, patience, or at least an outward show of it, having been drilling into them during their training. So they waited for an update, knowing they wouldn’t hear anything until the rescue team were clear, with or without Higgins.

When they heard the crackle of the channel opening, they both sat very, very still, not even breathing for fear of missing something important.

_“Got her. But she’s non-responsive.”_

T.C. turned the nose and was heading toward the nearest hospital before Rick could even acknowledge the report. What he wanted to do was go to the salvage team and pick Higgins up. But he knew the Coast Guard had a medic onboard and that delaying medical attention was never a good thing. So hospital it was, while Rick called Katsumoto and he, in turn, called in the officers who were waiting to scoop up the people they’d identified as watching him and Magnum.

It hadn’t taken long for the three men to gather at the hospital, Magnum having been told to expect to be called into the station to give an official statement and then let go. There had been barely contained panic when Higgins had been brought in, the Coast Guard’s medic and hospital staff all shouting orders. And Higgins hadn’t responded to any of it. She’d been hypothermic, her captors smart enough to supply her with breathable air but too stupid or too uncaring to think of how cold the diving bell would get.

The trio had watched in silence as she’d been rushed past them, all of them seeing how blue her lips looked, how pale her skin was, how terrifyingly still she was. And then she was gone, the doors swinging closed behind the mayhem of life-saving business, and they were left sitting in the waiting room. They were a few minutes of conversation while they exchanged quick updates, Magnum telling Rick and T.C. how the smoke bombs had been more effective than he had been expecting, how he had thought for a second that he had somehow accidentally planted the actual bomb. But, for the most part, they simply waited.

It took over an hour for someone to come out and get them, to tell them that their friend was recovering nicely, to offer to take them to the private room she had been settled in. They followed happily, agreeing to stay quiet and not try to keep Higgins awake if she did wake up while they were there. They all privately made up their minds that they absolutely would be there when she woke up, even if it meant hiding from nursing staff and orderlies while they came to check on her during the night.

It wasn’t necessary. She was wrapped in blankets, heating pads scattered about her, a warmed IV running slowly into her arm, and she shifted as they walked in, her head tilting on the pillow as if reacting to the familiar voices.

“Keep talking,” smiled the nurse, making a quick note on the patient chart and then leaving them to it. 

So they chatted to Higgins while she sighed and stirred and, finally, after a long ten minutes, managed to prise her eyes open. Rick pressed the call button while Higgins’ unfocused gaze flitted about the room before landing on T.C. and sharpening a little. Then her eyes moved to take in Rick and Magnum, and a small smile spread over her face, even as her eyes dropped closed again.

The same nurse who had led them to the room came bustling back in, checking the various pieces of equipment and making several notes before turning to the three men who had gathered against the back wall to stay out of her way.

“She’s gonna be just fine,” she assured them. “You’re welcome to stay until her doctor comes back if you’d like.”

They didn’t even need to exchange a glance, let alone any words; they would like nothing better than to stay with their Higgy, to take the time they needed to assure themselves that she really was back with them, really was okay. As the nurse left again, off to see her other patients, the men settled themselves back in their chairs and settled down to wait for Higgins to wake up again.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, yeah, I know, trapped in a diving bell. What was I thinking? I really am struggling with these prompts (no pun intended)


End file.
